Digital lighting technologies, i.e. illumination based on semiconductor light sources, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), offer a viable alternative to traditional fluorescent, HID, and incandescent lamps. Functional advantages and benefits of LEDs include high energy conversion and optical efficiency, durability, lower operating costs, and many others. Recent advances in LED technology have provided efficient and robust full-spectrum lighting sources that enable a variety of lighting effects in many applications. Some of the fixtures embodying these sources feature a lighting module, including one or more LEDs capable of producing different colors, e.g. red, green, and blue, as well as a processor for independently controlling the output of the LEDs in order to generate a variety of colors and color-changing lighting effects.
LED-based lighting fixtures and arrays may be installed in locations where they may cover and/or form all or portions of certain structures such as walls, ceilings, and/or floors. Such LED-based lighting fixtures must be installed so as to not interfere with certain devices that are present or that may be present in the area over which they are placed. For example, it may be undesirable to place an LED-based lighting fixture or a section of an LED array over sprinklers, projectors, speakers, and/or spot lights disposed within an indoor location since the LED-based lighting fixture or the section of the LED array may interfere with desired operation of such devices.
Thus, there is a need in the art to provide methods and apparatus that enable removal of a portion of a grid of a plurality of LEDs of an LED-based lighting unit or an LED array. The methods and apparatus may optionally enable, for example, a structure or device to pass through an opening created by the removed portion of the LED-based lighting unit.